Twitter Updates

32 posts from October 2008

The logo was designed by WWdN:iX reader Marc, who asked that I not link to his "in progress" website. Thanks, Marc!

I drop at least one F-bomb in this show, so you probably shouldn't listen to it around little kids, people with sensitive ears, or at work. Especially if you work in a daycare for kids with sensitive ears. (Hi, Natasha!)

I went ahead and made this an enhanced podcast. You know, for kids. Enjoy the pictures and links.

Podshow wants me to say "Some of the music provided tonight is from the PodShow Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at 'music.podshow.com'"

What's that? You want to have links to each artist's page? I can totally do that:

Similarly, The Trick from Jack Chick also needs to be seen to be fully enjoyed. I edited the hell out of it (see what I did there?) to stay safely within fair use. Jack Chick strikes me as the kind of corporation that has no sense of humor, but a lot of lawyers.

Reader Jeremy pointed out that Don Hinson, the genius behind the awesome Monster Dance Party album (which provided the catchy Riboflavin-Flavored, Non-Carbonated, Polyunsaturated Blood) has a website, including a store where you can buy Monster Dance Party on CD. It's not the full album that I've had since I was a kid, but it's still wonderful.

Finally, I want to thank all the artists and labels who are participating in the podsafe music network. I hope this exposes your music to new listeners and you're all buying mansions and yachts. If you can't afford to buy them, I hope you can at least build them out of the bones of your enemies.

When I finish a big acting or writing project, I have this massive crash, like the world's worst hangover combined with a profound sense of emptiness and loss. I understand that this is really common for creative people, but understanding that doesn't make it any easier for me to accept it. I AM SUPERMAN, GODDAMMIT! I CAN DO ANYTHING!

Um, except that I can't.

I've felt this ickyness for the last couple of days, and though I know it will eventually pass (it always does), it's incredibly difficult for me to give myself permission to take a fuck off day or two, when I already feel like what I do isn't real work anyway, and people I know are getting laid off left and right.

Anyway, in an effort to balance out teh emo, please enjoy this picture I drew while I was on the phone with Andrew yesterday:

"Unlike the boring experience of taking notes in a text editor on the computer, using an actual pen and actual paper presented the opportunity to draw an actual unicorn, with a star for an eye, a wheel instead of back legs, riding on the leading edge of a rainbow.

AWESOME.

It's blurry, because it's just a stupid crappy camphone shot, but I think that's part of its charm."

I thought it was riding the front edge of a rainbow, but a consensus is emerging that it's actually farting a rainbow. I can accept either one of these interpretations. The important thing is, I have a unicorn with a star for an eye and wheels for legs.

ETA: See, this is why I love the Internets. Reader B says "I loved your unicorn phone doodle and was moved to draw this..."

Codeweavers makes really cool software called CrossOver that lets Mac and Linux users run Windows software on their computers. There are two versions: CrossOver Pro, which installs and runs lots of office-y stuff, and CrossOver Games, which does exactly what it sounds like. Quoth Wikipedia:

CrossOver (known before version 6.0 as CrossOver Office) is the collective name for three commercial and proprietary programs developed by CodeWeavers that allows many Windows-based applications to run on Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris using a compatibility layer. The programs include CrossOver Mac, CrossOver Linux and CrossOver Games.

The programs are tweaked, proprietary versions of the public Wine source tree with various compatibility patches added, more user-friendly configuration tools and commercial support. CodeWeavers employs several Wine developers and contributes code back to the free software/open source software Wine project as per the GNU LGPL, although CrossOver itself is proprietary software.

I'm a big fan of CrossOver. Before Pokerstars released their Mac client, I used CrossOver to play in tourneys for years on both my Linux machine and my Mac. If you're a Mac or Linux user and you want or need to run Windows software on your machine, including a bunch of spiffy games, head over to Codeweavers and get to downloading.

William was in the chair, Robyn was on the bed, and I was in the doorway to the bathroom when we started. Stacy cleared out the set and gave us an actor's rehearsal with John.

On the first run through, I came into the room, said, "That would really be something . . ." and walked right up to Robyn.

"Wait," I said. "That's not right. I haven't left myself anywhere to go. Sorry."

I took a few steps back, and delivered the line again. This time, I stayed in the doorway and just pointed to her. Yeah, that felt better. Then, when I said, "I have to say, I didn't think it'd be you . . ." I slowly walked up to her, like I was stalking my prey, enjoying how terrified and weak she was. I picked up the bat and used it to punctuate each line. (Some of that was in the script, some of it was just following my instincts, but I really like the way it came together when we filmed it.) Then I walked back over to him, taunting him the whole way, enjoying his suffering. When he sassed me, I reminded him who was in charge, with the old bat to the gut move. You know the one.

At least, that's how we rehearsed it the first time. The second time, I had an idea.

"John," I said, "What if . . ." I leaned down and got close to William's head and lowered my voice. "What if I I get kind of conspiratorial when I talk to him about what always happens? It's like I'm letting him in on it, like I'm really toying with him, because I've gotten away with it before, I'll get away with it now, and he's powerless to stop me."

"I love that," John said.

"I think I have to try to headbutt you if you do that," William said. "I can't just sit here and take it."

"Well, let's try it and see what happens," John said.

We reset, and when I leaned down to whisper at him, he lunged at me. It was scary, because if I'd gotten a few inches closer, he probably would have broken my nose. I stayed in character, though, pulled back, and raised a finger. "Easy!" I said to him with some amusement, like you'd tell a dog who wouldn't let go of the Kong. "I have to say I did--" He lunged at me again, and I let the anger take control. "EASY!" I said. I did not like it that he challenged my authority.

We continued rehearsing the scene until that beat was finished.

"Yeah, that's great," John said.

Stacy invited the crew back, and we went through the same routine as the last scene. Again, we filmed it quickly, in just a few hours. Again, I was impressed by the professionalism and speed of the Criminal Minds crew. Again, I was envious of the people who get to work with them every day.

Now, quickly doesn't mean easily. This was an intense scene, and I wanted to be sure that I didn't over-complicate it, over-act it, or miss any beats. There are few things worse than watching an episode when it airs and realizing that I completely missed something that would have made a performance more interesting. I can't watch myself too closely when we're filming, though, because people don't do that in real life and it makes performances seem too studied and self-conscious (for a perfect example of an over-studied, self-conscious performance, watch Rebecca Pidgeon in . . . anything.) In this instance, it was a real gift that I was working with such talented actors, and a director who I could completely trust and rely upon to ensure my performance hit all the right notes. I was able to lose myself in Floyd's head while we rolled, and just let him guide me. If I felt icky when we cut, I was pretty sure I'd gotten there.

Next, we shot the final scene, where Ian breaks loose and attacks me. I only recall a couple of things about shooting this: It disturbed me so much to pull Robyn's dress up her legs. I don't recall exactly where they cut on air, but I'd usually get up around mid-thigh before I stopped. I've known her since we were kids, and finding the real rage/hatred/sexual energy that Floyd had was even more difficult than it would have been if we didn't have a prior relationship. In some ways, it helped, because we trusted each other more than the average pair of actors would, but it was still uncomfortable for me. When the scene was finally over, and she was untied from the bed, she sat up, and we hugged each other. Tightly. For a good long time. I'm not sure who needed it more, to tell you the truth.

The stunt was pretty straight forward, and William's double made sure I didn't get hurt when he slammed me into the wall. I knew I was working on a show with a real budget when the wall didn't shake or fall down. There was a moment of supreme hilarity when I shoved him off of me, and then wailed on him with the bat. It was, obviously, a break-away bat, which is foam rubber molded around a flexible shaft. It looks great, and is safe, but it can get deformed pretty easily. Picking a random example: if you use it to hit the guy on the floor, it may bend and look really funny when you pull it back for the second hit, still acting as enraged as ever, causing the entire crew to laugh at you.

In the original script, Floyd was supposed to cut Abby's leg when sliced the tape around her ankles, but that was cut out on the set to save time. After watching the episode, I don't think we needed it.

When the scene was over, John got together with Robyn, William, and me. "I just wanted to say thank you for a great week's work today," he said. He didn't have to say that, but when those scenes were over, we'd left it all on the stage, as the saying goes, and it was really awesome of him to acknowledge that.

I had a pretty long break after that scene, while they got set for the BAU to kick in the door and ruin Floyd's good time. I spent sitting it in video village with the writers and some of the other producers. I asked Erica and Debra so many questions about the story, I can't recall all of them, but I remember how excited they both were to have gotten the truck crash at the top of the show pretty much exactly the way they wanted it.

"You write that scene, set it at night, in the rain, and figure that it's going to end up being cut by production to save money." Debra said. "When it's on TV, it's a minivan, in the afternoon, and the sun is shining."

"But we figured that we may as well go crazy and put it all in there, and hope that they'd only cut a little bit of it," Erica said. "Maybe they'd just take out the rain, or not let us crash the car or something. I can't believe we got all of it!"

While I talked with them, I was stricken by how much they love writing for this show. I got the feeling that they don't take it for granted, care deeply about each episode they write, and want everything to be as good as it can possibly be. For this episode, particularly, they wanted to tell a story that was disturbing and scary, "Like a horror movie," Deb said. Based on the feedback I've gotten from people who watched it, I think they succeeded.

Video village was set up pretty close to the actor's chairs. Paget and Thomas were sitting down between setups, and I don't remember how it started, but we ended up talking about geek stuff. I think Paget mentioned that she and I had done the Celebrity D&D thing to Thomas, and somehow that lead into Doctor Who.

"Who's your Doctor?" She asked me.

"Tom Baker, of course," I answered.

"Mine too!" She said.

We both looked to Thomas, who had become very interested in reading his newspaper.

"I told you, we're nerds," she said to him. I may have swooned just a little bit.

They went back to work, and I went back to waiting. The only thing left for me to shoot was some inserts of my eye, peeking through the hole in the wall. It was, admittedly, an anti-climactic way to finish work on the show, but when it was done, and Stacy announced to the crew, "That is a picture wrap on Wil Wheaton," the applause from the cast and crew blunted the sadness I felt. My adventure was over, and it was time to go back home.

I went back to my trailer and, with a heavy heart, changed into my regular clothes. I signed out for the last time, and on my way to my car, I ran into Debra Fisher.

"Do you have time to see the writer's room?" She asked. I'd been asking to see it all week, but there had never been an opportunity to get away from the set.

"I sure do!" I said. The melancholy I'd been wallowing in moments before was replaced by a familiar excitement.

We walked through the stage and out the other side, up a flight of stairs, and into their production offices. For the next twenty minutes, Deb showed me where she and Erica write their scripts, including the white board they use to plot their episodes.

"Is it okay for me to photograph this and put it online?" I said. "This is really cool."

When I got leaned in to take some closer shots, I saw something really awesome. The last line on the whole thing said "Floyd gets away."

"We originally wanted Floyd to get away," she said. "We thought it would be really cool if the last shot of the show was a couple checking into a new roadside motel in a new location. You'd see Floyd check them in, and the camera would crane up to see the No Vacancy sign flicker on."

"Oh man, that would have been awesome!" I said.

"We thought it would be cool to have Hotch really screw up," she said, "but we couldn't sell them on it."

"Do you guys write extended story arcs?" I asked. "I haven't really watched much of the show."

"Mostly it's pretty self-contained in each episode," she said, "sometimes we'll have something carry over, but the network likes us to keep things confined to one show."

She showed me volume after volume of books, filled with crime reports, autopsy results, criminal psychology, and other things that they have to use for references.

"I bet that's some disturbing stuff," I said.

"You don't even want to know," she said with a wry smile.

She walked me down the hall, and I got to go into the actual writer's room. I felt like I'd been granted access to the most secret, most special, most magical place in the world. It wasn't a room for relaxing or building a fort; this was a room for creating, and I could feel it. I wish I could describe exactly what it was like in there, but I was sworn to secrecy. I hope it'll be enough to read that it was filled with evidence that the people involved in the creation of Criminal Minds love the show and work very hard to make it awesome.

I lingered in the room as long as I could, but eventually Deb had to go back to the set, and I had to go home. We headed out of the production offices, and back down the stairs, where Erica Messer and John Gallagher were standing outside the stage door. I thanked them both one final time, and began the long, lonely walk across the parking lot back to real life.

On the way home, I reflected back on my week as part of the Criminal Minds family. I guess I could have enjoyed the satisfaction of a job well done, but there would be time for that later. As I left Floyd Hansen behind me and headed back to my real life, all I could think about was how much fun I'd had, and how much I already missed it. If you've ever gotten on the bus and watched summer camp recede into the distance behind you, you may know the feeling.

A couple of years ago, I successfully hit a writing deadline, and rewarded myself with a Think Geek shopping spree. One of the things I bought was this awesome Black Beast of Arrrggghhh. It has a Brother Maynard on the end of a string, and when you pull it, it makes a terrifying sound. And eats Brother Maynard. And there is much rejoicing. Yaaaaay.

The castle it's lurking behind is a limited-edition Dungeon Master's screen that was made to commemorate the release of 4e. Most of them were sent to retailers, but a few were kept and given to people who have made contributions to the gaming industry. My friend John Kovalic was instrumental in making sure this one found its way into my geeky little hands. I haven't made contributions to the gaming community that are anywhere close to John's, but I just couldn't bring myself to refuse this awesome bit of geekery.

Think Geek doesn't appear to sell the Black Beast any more (you canbuy one at paizoif you want) but they sell theKiller Rabbit, and aBlack Knight(who is invincible) if you find yourself suddenly in need of Holy Grail items to decorate your home or office.

The last two days of production were incredibly intense for me, because that's when I shot all my torture/abuse/rape stuff. I was so focussed on the work, I didn't keep good notes, and I was too exhausted at the end of both days to write anything down once I got home. My memory is even more imperfect than usual, but I'll do my best to recall the time we spent inside cabin six, which had been built on a soundstage at Quixote studios.

This was the big day. This was the day I'd been waiting for since we began production. This was the day I got to really dive into Floyd Hansen's well of evil and find out how deep it went.

I had a late call, and William and Robyn had shot a lot of their scenes before I reported to set. When I walked in for rehearsal, it looked like they'd already been through the wringer. Robyn sat on the edge of the bed, and William leaned against the wall by the fireplace. They both held small sets of sides in their hands.

The cabin set was a practical set, meaning it had four walls and a ceiling (most sets don't have a ceiling on them, so it's easier to hang lights.) I've always felt like working on a movie or TV show is kind of like playing make believe with the most vivid imagination in history, so the more practical - and immersive - the set, the better. My favorite sets on TNG were Engineering and Ten Forward, because they were the most practical sets we had. Right up until my final day on the show, every time they turned on the engine (which was a series of neon lights inside a plastic mold) I expected to hear the whoomp whoomp whoomp (there it is) of the engine pulsing through the room.

It's easy to get lost in a set like the one they built for cabin six. Even though it's a tiny room, and even though the real world is just a few feet away, when you spend a lot of time in a set like that, performing scenes as intense as the ones we performed, you can go a little crazy in the pants. I can't speak for the other actors, but I used that sense of claustrophobia to inspire some of the choices I made for Floyd while we were in there. When I walked in for the first time, I let my imagination go nuts as I looked around the room. "I did [horrible thing] there, I did [other horrible thing] over there, [victim] put up a good fight over there, but I did [horrible horrible horrible thing] and put that fucker in a box . . ." Even though none of this was in the script, I figured that the more I could get into Floyd's head, the more he would live in me, unconsciously directing some subtle actions in each scene. This sort of thing, as twisted as it sounds in this particular instance, is a lot of fun for me, and makes acting much more than just showing up and saying the lines.

I walked over to Stacy, the first assistant director, and said good morning to her. It was afternoon, but when you walk onto the set for the first time, it's always "good morning."

She smiled at me. "Hello! Thanks for coming in."

Seriously. They're all about the thank yous on Criminal Minds. It's awesome.

"Cast is on the set," she said into her walkie. "I need everyone to clear out of the room for an actor's rehearsal."

Everyone except John left. Stacy closed the door, and we were alone in the cabin to block the scene where Floyd takes Ian out of the bathroom, drops him in the chair, and gets ready to have happy funtimes with Abby. For very disturbing values of "happy funtimes."

William Mapother is a huge guy, and I am an embarrassingly small guy. There was no way I'd be able to pull him around on my own.

"Uh, I don't know if I can pull you," I said. "In fact, I know that I can't."

William is one of the most intense actors I've ever worked with. Though he's friendly, kind, and supremely professional, I was terribly intimidated by him.

We looked at John together.

"I'll help him with my own legs," William said.

"Okay, we'll keep them out of the frame," John said. I was relieved.

We blocked the scene over the next few minutes. We tried it a few different ways, but what felt most real and satisfying to me was the tiniest bit of sexual excitement, sitting beneath a lot of rage and hatred and disgust. See, there was dialog from the BAU team about Floyd being a "violent anger excitation rapist" and I used that information to develop how Floyd would interact with Ian and Abby. This was all about power, control, humiliation, and fury. While it could have been interesting and even fun to let Floyd enjoy himself in this scene - after all, he's beaten the big guy unconscious, and after several hours of psychologically torturing them he's about to, as the serial killers say, "get to work" - he wasn't doing this because it made him happy. I suppose I could have gotten even deeper into Floyd's head than that, but even this much analysis made me uncomfortable.

Once we all felt like we knew how the scene would play out, Stacy invited the crew back into the room to put down marks and see the scene for themselves.

Seriously. Invited. That's the word she used. It seems like a small thing, but it's really not. I've worked in television for most of my life, and I can honestly say that Stacy may be the best First AD I've ever worked with.

Allow me to explain: First ADs set the tone for the entire set. If a First is neurotic, the set is neurotic. If a First is disorganized, so is the set. If a First yells a lot, they lose the crew's respect. Stacy was magnificent, though, and a great leader for this crew. She was calm, she was friendly, she was exceedingly professional, and above all she treated everyone on the cast and crew with respect, and it was clear that everyone respected her in return. See, working on a set is like being part of a team, and when a team is relaxed and working well together, they win a lot of games, making it look easy all the way. John Gallagher told me during a break one day that he believed the Criminal Minds crew was the best crew in the business, and with someone like Stacy leading them, they were like the '27 Yankees.

We walked through the scene again, stopping and starting so the camera department could put down marks. We traded positions with the stand-ins, and had a few minutes while they set up the shot.

On our way over to the craft service table, I talked with William about Lost. I probably shouldn't repeat what he told me, but you all think I'm cool now, right? Right? Hello?

Stacy invited us back into the set for filming. I remember being nervous about cutting William with the knife (which was dulled, but real and still moderately dangerous) and feeling sad for Robyn, who really was taped up to that bed frame the whole time. After each take, I would stand up, apologize to Robyn (who told me it was okay) and go back to my starting mark while they reset the scene. Even though it was a more intense scene than the stuff we shot in the office on location, I was more relaxed and comfortable. I felt like I'd shaken off all the cobwebs, like I did this sort of thing every day (the acting, not the torturing.) There wasn't a lot of coverage, and we were done with the scene in just a couple of hours.

I don't remember what it was, but they were filming a really short piece of a different scene that I wasn't in when we finished, so I went to my dressing room to check my cell phone for messages. On my way out, I passed one of the assistant directors (there are like four or five of them, I think), who was coming into the stage with a stack of pink revisions for the next episode.

"Oh, that's sad," I thought as the reality that my time on the show was nearly over hit me for the first time. "They're onto the next show, and I'm about to go back to stupid real life."

I replayed some of the last week in my head while I walked to my dressing room. I reached up to open the door, and as my hand touched the handle, a production assistant said, "Um. Wil?"

I looked up and saw that, lost in thought, I'd walked past my dressing room, and right up to Joe Mantegna's.

"Uh, looks like I upgraded myself to Joe Mangegna," I said. "That's embarrassing."

The PA and I laughed together, and I snuck back to my own room, past the cast parking.

Today is the day I've been waiting for since I booked this job. Today is the day that I get to really tear into this character, and mainline the good stuff that keeps actors coming back for more, chasing the dramatic dragon until we die. I was so excited to work today, I hardly slept at all last night, and woke up this morning before my alarm went off. I haven't felt like this since I was a little kid at Christmas.

God, I miss this. I didn't know how much I missed it until last week, but holy shit do I miss this. This cast, this crew, these writers, this director, this whole show is just incredible. I'm truly lucky to be here, and I'm so grateful that I can appreciate it, and not take it for granted like I would have ten years ago.

I realize that I keep making comparisons to being a kid at Christmas. The writer in me wants to go back and edit most of them out, but in this case, I think it's the exception that proves the rule: there is no better way to describe the overwhelming joy and excitement I felt while I was shooting this show.

My daughter is now 13. You can tell this by the way she presents herself for dinner at a restaurant wearing red and black striped fingerless gloves, a black puffball skirt and tights, a t-shirt that’s the dilute 2008 iteration of an idea Vivienne Westwood scrawled on the back of a fag packet in 1976, and a pair of boots that appear to have been fashioned from the hollowed-out legs of a particularly unfortunate black bear. Also, by the way I’ve gone from being called “daddy” to being called “shut up, Ellis.”

[...]

She wears her mp3 player in the car so she doesn’t have to listen to “old, creepy” bands on the CD player. And then berates me for not listening to “dad music” in the office. Which is also often termed “creepy.” Most things are either “cool” or “creepy.”

[...]

Nouns have seemingly become optional: “I need to thing about thing with thing and thing.” Her mother understands every word. I do not. This may be why her mother is “cool” and I am “creepy.”

Warren says that he's loving every minute of it, and since I've been there myself, I can relate. His post reminded me of an old post of mine, that I wrote when my awesome little guys were mysteriously replaced with Pod People:

So this weird thing happened two or three weeks ago: in the middle of the night, some aliens or MIBs or something snuck into my house while we were asleep, and they replaced my sweet, reasonable children with Teenagers.

Overnight, I went from pretty cool to really annoying, and questions that were usually answered with phrases like, "Okay," or "I'll do it in just a minute," or "Yes," were suddenly met with "Whatever." or "GOD!" or my personal favorite, stony silence with the rolling eyes and exasperated sigh.

It's so weird, man. And the thing is, my doors were all locked, and my windows were all closed . . . so my theory is that the Aliens or MIBs or whatever don't actually enter the house. Instead, they use some sort of parabolic mirror to direct a tractor beam through the walls, which we can't see or hear, and they pull the old switcheroo from orbit. I have no idea what they do with the sweet, reasonable pre-teens they take away, though. The current operating theory is that they need their youthful exuberance for fuel or something, but it's just a theory.

I called my mom, and told her how things had suddenly gotten really challenging as a parent, and you know what she did? She put her hand over the phone, and shouted to my dad, "Finally! It's Payback, Rick!" I'm pretty sure I heard my dad shout out something like, "Woo!" or "Yeehaw!" from another room . . .

Anyway, I'm taking a crash course in parenting Teenagers, which is fundamentally different from parenting pre-teens. It's not even like switching from vi to emacs . . . it's more like switching from vi to emacs and someone re-assigned your keyboard and changed the language and now the damn thing reboots randomly and though occasionally it makes sense, most of the time you're so goddamned confused you wonder why you bought a fucking computer in the first place. The weirdest thing is how quickly the pod-people arrived. It really did happen overnight (or maybe in the span of two days, but not longer than that.)

A couple of things I've learned, that I offer up, free of charge, to anyone parenting a teenager, or about to parent a teenager:

When we say, "no," what they hear is, "ask me again in a slightly different way in about ten minutes, and act like it's the first time you've asked me. Or you could go ask your mom, and pretend that we haven't talked. The most important thing is, you must act as if we haven't had this conversation, and keep asking me until you get whatever it is you want."

No matter what we as parents do, we are so unreasonable.

No matter what my parents say, I was never this irrational when I was a teenager.

Whatever it is they want to do, all their friends get to do it, with their parents' blessing.

Music is better when it's so loud the bass distorts. (Yes, I realize the irony of my "If it's too loud, you're too old" T-shirt from 11th grade.)

Even though they may act like they totally hate us, they still love us. It's just that their brains are all fucked up right now, and they need our help to figure out what the hell is going on (but won't admit it, and don't know how to ask for it).

So there's this interesting-and-cool thing happening: naturally, because they're teens, they're pulling away a little bit, figuring out who they are, and pushing against Anne and me as we define their age-appropriate limits, so a lot of the things we used to do together are so lame now . . . except for nerdy gaming. They LOVE the nerdy gaming, and it has become a conduit for me to communicate with them, as well as remain a part of their life. Ryan even told me the other day, "I want to start a club at school that's for nerds to do nerdy stuff, but I want to have, like, Masonic Degrees for nerds."

"What degree are you?" I said.

"I don't know," he said, "But you are a 33rd degree nerd."

I didn't ask him if there was a secret handshake, because I didn't want to be so lame.

I wrote that a little over three years ago, which at once feels like a lifetime ago and just yesterday. I'm not going to pretend that every day in between was unicorns and rainbows, but Nolan is a senior in high school now, and Ryan is in college. I am happy to report that the well-known Mark Twain quote applies.